Like Him
by wdbydoglvr
Summary: Sara thinks about her relationship with Grissom, and how it’ll never be the same again. Little does she know, someone knows almost exactly what she’s going through. Sara’s PoV


**Title**- Like Him Rating: K+ 

**Warnings-** Spoilers from UnBearable, Play With Fire, Crash and Burn… Maybe I should name off the ones that aren't on the list… Just read at your own risk.

**Pairings-** If I told you, that someone would have a name. They do, but for now, it's a secret.

**Summary**- Sara thinks about her relationship with Grissom, and how it'll never be the same again. Little does she know, someone knows almost exactly what she's going through. Sara's PoV

**A/N-** This can fit right into my other CSI: fic, Not Quite Paradise. No, I haven't gotten to that part yet, but I will, and hopefully this little attempt at angst will get the creative juices moving (there will be extremely minor spoilers to that, but they're not set in stone, as I haven't completely decided how I want it to go yet). And I know some of the actual lab part may be a bit off, but this one isn't about the lab. Outside that, there's not much besides OOC-ness. I got an idea and it wouldn't go away 'til I wrote this. Bear with me, please? puppy eyes Besides, there're some quotes in here I have for the characters to say (okay, one character, but still), and they fit here perfectly.

**Disclaimer-** If you think I own CSI, you're sadly mistaken. Wish I did, but I don't. If I did, the characters wouldn't sound as intelligent as they are, so be thankful. We don't need Crime Scene Investigators with an eighth grade education, now do we?

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For most people, it's a fact of life. You never realize how great something is until you've lost it. Sometimes, you blink and it's gone, and you can immediately regret not cherishing it more, but other times you lose it slowly, gradually. You don't realize it's gone, and you don't have to miss it, so maybe it's easier that way. But once you find out, it's even harder to grasp, because you could've done something to stop it.

Sara Sidle had learned this the hard way. She was currently watching her supervisor, Gil Grissom, and from what she had heard, and even seen with her own eyes, the first woman he had really opened up to in years. From the break room, Sara watched Grissom and Sophia Curtis going over evidence from their case in the evidence room while Nick and Warrick were out serving a warrant. Catherine and Greg, who were working with Sara, were at the police station, interrogating a suspect. Usually, one or two people in the interrogation room was much more effective than three, so Sara stayed back, waiting for word from the others.

Grissom and Sophia were sitting rather closer together than Grissom usually would've stood for, Sophia was laughing, and Grissom was smiling rather uncharacteristically. Not like the supervisor of the night shift at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, but like the man Sara met at a seminar in California all those years ago.

As Sara took a sip from her coffee, she remembered the call she had gotten, getting close to six years ago now (was it really that long ago?). They needed someone to do an internal investigation, all over a newbie CSI who had died in the field when Warrick was supposed to be shadowing her. Molly Gribb, something like that. But the thing that stuck her was that of all the people he could've chosen, he chose her. Gil Grissom had said that he needed her.

She didn't know why she stayed in Vegas. Maybe it was the team. Maybe it was the atmosphere. With a sigh, Sara shook her head. She was kidding herself thinking that she didn't know why she stayed. She stayed for Grissom, with the hope that something would happen between them, and they could be like they were before. She had so many chances to leave, so many reasons, but she never did. Even now, she hoped that something would happen, even though something told her it wouldn't.

Looking through the glass at Grissom and Sophia again, Sara asked herself for the umpteenth time (she had lost count long ago) '_Why am I still here?'_ She didn't have an answer that she could admit to herself, and possibly never would, but the questions that had been running through her head ever since she had heard Grissom ask Sophia to go to dinner with him were still there. _'Does he even need me anymore?'_

Sara couldn't remember a time since she'd been to Vegas when she didn't want to be where Sophia was now. Even when she was with Hank (although she would never tell this to anyone) it didn't quite feel right. Maybe it was because of what was going on behind her back, but if it was, it shouldn't have surprised her so much…

With a sigh, Sara went to drain the rest of her coffee, but the moment the liquid touched her lips, she gagged and pulled a face, forcing it down and throwing the styrofoam cup at the garbage bin across the room. It was an indicator of how long she had been sitting there- her coffee was much cooler than she liked it. From the door, she heard an unnatural sounding laugh.

"That's why I hate the lab's coffee. They buy the cheap, nasty stuff so people spend less time on break and more time working." Sara looked up to see Greg standing in the doorway, watching her with a semi amused look on his face. Without even glancing in the hallway to see if anyone was listening, Sara forced a smile on her face to respond. If others knew she was upset, it would lead to awkward questions.

"You know, I wouldn't put that past Ecklie. But it was cold, I've been waiting for you two to come back here forever…" Sara stopped, looking out in the hallway. "Where's Catherine?" Looking back at Greg, she noticed the look on his face, and remembered his laugh from a minute ago. It was forced, not at all his usual laugh… Come to think of it, if they had just made an arrest, he wouldn't be so quiet… Sara had a sinking feeling that they would be pulling another double tonight.

"We didn't get him, did we?" Greg didn't answer, but made his way over to the coffee maker to brew some of his Blue Hawaiian. After a few minutes, he started speaking as if he had never stopped.

"No, but Catherine went with Brass to get a new warrant for the guy's DNA…" Greg turned around and made his way over to the table next to Sara, the sounds of the coffeepot starting up on the counter. He pulled out a chair and collapsed in it, smiling at her. "You know, we suspect this guy knows what he's doing, so I doubt we'll get him on a slide-bite, but I've heard around the lab that there's a seventeen percent chance of recovery from the shooter's perspiration…"

Sara half glanced across the hallway at Grissom and Sophia, only mildly concerned about where Greg knew that from. Maybe he read the article too, or it was just more lab rat gossip... Sara remembered telling Grissom about that in an article a few years ago. She sighed and looked back down at her hands, before quickly turning to Greg, trying to come up with something to say to distract him from her behavior. But she caught his eyes, and he smiled slightly.

"You know, I wasn't lying when I said I'm a good listener. You can tell me." The corners of Sara's mouth pulled up slightly, and she had half a mind to remind him about the last time she had confided in him. He had told Warrick that she would be at a certain restaurant with Hank, which she forgave. But then Nick somehow ended up knowing, and then Catherine… Soon she had to find a new place to go out so she didn't need to worry about people finding her when she was trying to have a sliver of a social life.

Sara was saved from having to respond by a soft, mechanical sounding beep, and Greg got up and returned to the coffee maker. She tried to think of a topic to move things to before Greg pried to deep, but before she knew it, he was speaking again.

"You know, it's not completely hard to tell what's going on. You like…" He paused, and Sara closed her eyes, hoping he didn't say what she thought he would. Was she that obvious? If she was, he seemed to be humoring her, and didn't give a name. "…Someone, and you keep dropping hints for them. But they rarely even give you the time of day, or in this case, I guess it would be night… Anyway, you can't get them to give you the time of day, 'cause they've got their eye on someone else."

What he was saying surprised Sara, because it was frighteningly true. She wanted Grissom's attention, but lately he was busy talking to Sophia, comparing cases and outlooks on life… Okay, so maybe she was a bit more obvious than she thought she'd been, but that didn't give Greg the right to tell her what she felt…

"You know, if you were going to listen, why are you telling me this?" She turned around to look at Greg, who was staring back with an odd expression on his face. He seemed almost sad, but was bordering on angry as well. He started to open his mouth, but closed it again. Greg turned around and made his way over to the couch on the opposite side of the room and sat down, titling his head back to stare at the ceiling. For a few seconds, they were silent, before Greg spoke up quietly.

"That's exactly what I meant. I'll try to talk to you, and you change the subject. More than once you've completely ignored me. I think you're more like him than you realize…" It took a second for Sara to process what he just said. Where they even on the same subject? She opened her mouth to ask what he was talking about, but stopped herself. Even if she had known what he meant, snapping at him like that was uncalled for, and even more so about something she was unaware of…

They went silent again, the only noises in the room were the machines from the lab around them, and the soft _drip _of the coffeemaker. This gave Sara a chance to think for a few minutes, and she quickly realized that talking to Greg had actually helped with the Grissom thing. But now he was angry with her, and she had something else to dwell on. Did he mean what she thought he meant? Of course he flirted with her, but that was typical Greg. He flirted with every woman in the lab, she wasn't the only one…

A loud beeping cut through the silence and they both instinctively reached for their pagers, but Sara's was missing from her belt. Then she remembered, she had left hers in her car so she would remember to replace the dead battery. As she stood up, Greg was almost to the door, and he turned to look at her after dropping his empty coffee cup in the garbage. Now, he looked no different than most people anticipating a second shift, and even managed a smile.

"You can stay here, Catherine's back, she'll be coming in here any minute now. I just…" He shook his head with a sigh. "I need to take a walk, I'll catch her on her way in…"

But as he turned and made his way down the hall, his words kept repeating in her head. _"I think you're more like him than you realize…" _What was he talking about? The only person she could think of was Grissom, and she couldn't think of much they had in common… Well, some things, but not in the romance department…

Sara shook her head, and made her way towards the coffeepot that Greg had left unguarded. If Catherine was coming, that would mean break was over. Sara could think about all of this after shift… She sighed as she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. How many times had she told herself that? Even worse, how many times did she actually listen to herself?

Sara shook her head and took a sip of the coffee, the special blend of the Blue Hawaiian energizing her much better than the regular coffee. This was going to be a very complicated shift…

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**A/N- **Reviews on this may help me update NQP sooner… I'm not planning on continuing this, as you'll be able to see how they act when I get to this point… Maybe this should've been a chapter in that, but I promised I'd try to stay away from the overly angsty in that (if this even qualifies as angst :p), 'cept one event I've been anticipating… Ah, why am I saying all this? If you enjoyed, review, and if you didn't, tell me what I did wrong. 


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